Well gang, this year is about
to come to a close; and weve had a year that was filled
with many great and exciting races; but we also experienced some
sadness as well. Over the course of 2017, we lost four of our
club members. Mike Davis, Gary Bitetti, Ed Hoffman and Wayne
Magers all left us way too early in their lives.

This year we had more members
attend our races than in any previous year; with an average of
17.7 cars per event. We also had 36 different drivers show up
for at least one race. Karen and I want to thank all of you for
putting on some great racing for each of our 9 races. We know
that it takes long hours of preparation, tons of windshield time
and deep pockets to campaign any sort of race car these days;
and our members really did outdo themselves this year. We can
only hope that in 2018, we can continue to keep the gasser racing
legacy alive and well. This last newsletter contains all the
winners of this years races; and Ive included a special
treat at the end of the newsletter that I thought all of you
would enjoy.

Way back when
we were still too young to own or work on a real car; many of
us enjoyed spending time building and working on model cars.
Once we got older, we set aside these small plastic models and
we moved onto the real deal. However, many hot rod enthusiasts
still enjoy building a plastic model car; especially since they
now possess much greater skills in creating model replicas of
cars that once raced on the nations dragstrips. Most of
you have seen and enjoyed the photographic talents of Bob Wenzelburger;
but did you also know that Bob is a very accomplished model car
builder. A few weeks ago, club member Lew Stitely sent me some
pictures of the model that Bob built of Lews Tijuana
Taxi Corvette. Since Bob did such a great job re-creating
Lews car; I thought everyone might like to see what goes
into making a great looking replica. Bob started with a standard
1/25 scale AMT 55 Corvette kit. He measured the body to assess
what size decals he would need and then he removed all of the
side trim, radiused the rear wheels, worked on lowering the suspension
and he added a chrome strip to the bottom of the top. Bob used
the engine supplied with the kit; but he added a resin intake,
he wired the ignition and built a set of headers from solder.
The injector tubes were created from 1/8 aluminum tubing
that were flared on Bobs mini lathe. The interior of the
car was not too difficult; but the roll cage was built from scratch.

The original
decals that Bob had made were way too big; but a close friend
reduced the size by 25% and they looked just right. Bob also
used foil tape for the chrome trim. He cover the entire car with
a few coats of clear and then rubbed the finish out. He even
made a set of license plates; as well as the wheelie bar setup.
The final work invloved putting on the lights, bumpers and other
chrome trim pieces. Bob thinks he has at least 75 hours of labor
into making this re-creation. I must say you did a great job
Bob. I know Lew just loves it. Keep up the great work!